Rebecca Ann Newsome faces Warwick Magistrates Court on three charges following forged pokies win

A big win on the pokies at a Toowoomba pub ultimately landed a Warwick woman in court, after she fraudulently attempted to gain an even larger windfall.

A woman’s big win on the pokies has ended in a big loss following an appearance in Warwick Magistrates Court on fraud charges.

Rebecca Ann Newsome on Friday pleaded guilty to three charges, including forgery, uttering forged documents and fraud to dishonestly induce person to act.

In the early hours of January 29, 2020, the 39-year-old was playing the pokies at the Gowrie Road Hotel, Newtown, and following a big win of almost $400, proceeded to cash out the balance.

Police prosecutor Sergeant Andrew Grafton told the court at 3.54am the 39-year-old won $397.85 from the machine and requested the payout be $100 as a cheque and the rest in cash.

Police allege Newsome then altered the cheque by changing the cash amount from $100 to $1000, and later that day, entered Westpac bank at Toowoomba and requested the forged cheque in cash.

The cheque was then processed, with Newsome leaving the bank with $1000 in cash from the dodgy cheque.

The court heard Newsome had a history with fraud, recently facing fraud offences in Pine Rivers in 2019 and 2021.

Magistrate Virginia Sturgess said Newsome’s offending was part of a “series of dishonesty” and she had committed “large number of fraud, forgery and stealing charges, as well as drug offences” in the past.

“You have embarked on quite a significant series of dishonesty offending, you’ve already been sentenced a number of times,” magistrate Sturgess said.

Newsome was ordered to pay the $900 back in restitutions to the bank with convictions recorded.

Originally published as Rebecca Ann Newsome faces Warwick Magistrates Court on three charges following forged pokies win